Education for social justice: A critique of national education policies of India

Abstract

Education possesses the potential to combat the prevailing systemic inequities in societies through policy interventions aimed at creating inclusive societies. Several studies since independence have critically analysed the indifferent nature of the education system towards certain groups and sections. Despite a rights-based approach to educational access, the data still shows that some social, religious, economic groups and girls are striving for basic educational access. The silent arrival (without any political dialogue) and approval of NEP have left all to accept the policy as it is, leaving no room for any discourse (New education policy 2020: what is concealed and what is unveiled. The New Leam 20). The most recent data available at the national level (UDISE, 2018–2019) also confirms that irrespective of decades-old commitment to equitable education, the social, gender and economic gaps in the education system still exists. The major objective of this paper is to analyse the shift in policies relating to the educational statuses of disadvantaged sections of society in the Indian post-independent era with a major focus on NEP 2020. Primarily based on analysis of all the major educational policies, this paper tries to develop an argument around the policies and how far it has led to un-democratization of education by reinforcing the exclusion of certain groups from the education system. This has been substantiated by the secondary data, which categorically highlights the gaps which exist in the educational access by different groups. The findings reveal that the policies have played a detrimental role in intensifying the already existing inequalities. Further, the children who access and complete the school education constitute a homogenous group and not all children from diverse group enrol for and complete the education.

Introduction

Policies concerning public interests are primarily focused on reducing the existing inequalities in society. The inequalities which have been a part of India for a long is largely due to the structural differences in groups based on social category, income levels, religion, region and gender. These inequalities have been strongly gripping the Indian education system since India got its independence. Strengthening elementary education was envisioned as a measure to combat the prevailing systemic inequities through policies. With a vision to make provision of elementary education of equitable nature, Article 45 was brought under which children from 6 to 14 years were provided free and compulsory education. Ahead of that, the State was directed to promote the economic as well as the educational interest of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) by imposing Article 46. In over 6 decades, several policies have made their way in contributing to the eradication of inequities of the education system. However, how well they succeeded in dealing with these inequities is a concern that has been dealt with in the present paper. The present paper aims to look at the educational policies framed in post-independent India from the point of view of equality at the elementary level of education.

Major policies and education

NPE in its draft document of 2019 stated that discrimination related to gender, social and economic conditions serve as a major barrier that affects the benefits that the people can draw. And in this direction, education could serve as an important tool to achieve social justice and equality. Not only this draft, but all the major educational policies have taken up this issue and critically looked at the concerns in school participation as caused by the existing inequalities and injustices. Looking at the Indian education system, historically it has always been elitist. The education system during the ancient times was tailored around the needs of the Brahmins and then the colonial rule also took forward the legacy of such an education system which is geared to preserve the interest of privileged classes (Cheney et al., 2005). In a way, colonial education legitimised the privileges of the colonizers (Kumar, 2015). Macaulay Minutes advocated the replacement of the Indian system of education with the English one. This certainly depicted that English is a superior form of education and that they possess the values that made English a superior race (Bhatty, 2014). Their aim to create a class of people who are Indian in blood and colour but English in opinions, taste and intellect reflects the ideology that education is to be preserved for certain groups and that the idea of standardized and universal education stands irrelevant.

As per the first post-independent census of 1951, the level of literacy was too low and only 9% females and 27% males were literate. This was because education was restricted to those who can help administer the country well and, in this process, the poor were left deprived of education. The agenda of post-independent education was shaped by the progressive vision of building a nation. The preamble to the constitution reflects that the country aspired for a just, socialist and egalitarian society, where education played a vital role in building an inclusive society (Raina, 2020). In 1950, the constitution declared that the State shall provide free and compulsory education for all children until they complete 14 years. By then, there was not a single policy that looked at the educational demands of marginalized sections. This made elementary education a public good provided constitutionally to all children from diverse social, economic and lingual backgrounds.

Mudaliar Committee (1952) came up recognizing the educational needs of girls but attached with it came the special provision for the study of “home sciences” for girls. Thus, rather than bringing equality in the educational demands of the genders, one specific gender was constrained within the subjects to be chosen. However, there was no recommendation from the committee on how to cater to the educational needs of those who belong to some weaker social and economic backgrounds. On the other hand, the Constitution committed itself to the provisions of equality of opportunity, social justice and further making the State responsible for preserving, protecting and assuring the rights of marginalized and the minorities. In this entire process of assuring equality of status, the significance of education has been well realized. To mention a few, Article 19 provides a right to speech and expression, Article 30 permits the minorities to establish and administer educational institutions, Article 39 emphasises the role of the State in promoting the opportunities for social justice and welfare, Article 45 makes provision for free and compulsory education for children until 14 years of age. After almost two decades of framing of Constitution, the first National Education Policy was drafted and followed the recommendations made by the Kothari Commission (1966).

Following the report of the Kothari Commission, NPE (1968) reiterated the provision of free and compulsory education and a special emphasis was laid on the removal of disparities to equalize educational opportunities to those who have been denied this for long. The policy also mentioned the Common School System with an idea to promote social cohesion and national integration. It said that the establishment of these schools will compel the rich, powerful and the privileged to participate in the system of public education and thus can help bring early improvement. It was seen that the implementation of this concept has not remained up to the mark and above that rapid privatization of education resulted in differentiated schooling experiences (Maniar, 2019).

The policy also talked of equalising the educational opportunity by overcoming the regional imbalances by the means of providing educational facilities, the education of girls, backward class and tribal groups received special emphasis. But due to the lack of specifications in policy and programme and that too with inappropriate financial and organizational structure, it failed to make its impact. The policy also looked at people as resources who can help build a nation without proper strategies (Dewan, 2017). Thus, this phase of early post-independent India was shaped by the policy wisdom of the constitutional framework characterized by inclusive development through public education. Social justice, equality of educational opportunity and direct delivery by the State were the factors considered for framing school education policies, practices and programmes (Papastephanou, 2020). But the constitutional vision of state-funded education did not turn into reality and thus achievement of the targets of universalizing elementary education stood delayed (Mukhopadhyay and Sarangapani, 2018). However, differential arrangements of schooling for children belonging to different sections of society turned schools into active oppressive instruments where the class divide was legitimized and perpetuated (Varughese and Bairagya, 2020). This, of course, was a barrier to the social integration of the disadvantaged with the rest of the community.

This was continued till the second national policy, NPE (Government of India, 1986) was released. Realizing the shortcomings of NPE 1968, the policy of 1986 acknowledged the lack of financial outlays as one of the shortfalls which resulted in expanding the issues of access, quality and utility of education. In short, the first educational policy provided some of the broad principles rather than specific solutions and interventions (Bhatty, 2014). The policy of 1986 marked the beginning of the neoliberal restructuring of education (Raina, 2020) and the sector other than the State was made a major stakeholder. NPE 1986 along with its Programme of Action (POA), 1992 introduced non-formal education and also talked of equalizing the educational opportunities. It also emphasized strengthening the Common School System (CSS). Analysing the document, it could be easily observed that this document restated the recommendations as made by the earlier policy on several aspects especially on the concerns of equalizing educational opportunities and strengthening of CSS (Raina, 2020).

The policy of 1986 gave a lot of impetus to the need to strengthen basic education and physical access was increased to bring schools within reach of children. It was believed that the establishment of schools will lead to increased demand for education even among the disadvantaged who by then were assumed to be possessing lower educational demands. However, setting aside the need to address the social factors which are the biggest determinants of school enrolments and retention, this policy completely relied on increasing the quantitative reach of schools to bring children into schools. And, unfortunately, this physical expansion was done at a cost of quality (Sarangapani, 2010) and the public schools were left with poor quality infrastructure and other facilities.

Nevertheless, the NPE 1986 and its subsequent POA 1992 (Government of India, 1992) went ahead of the earlier policies and mentioned the need and provisions of education of girls, SCs (Scheduled Castes) and STs (Scheduled Tribes), educationally backward sections and areas, minorities and children with special needs (mentioned as handicaps in the policy). There was a significant shift in emphasis from the enrolment of children in schools to their retention till the completion of levels and hence provided a broader framework than the earlier one. The policy also talked of non-formal education for school drop-outs, children from habitations without schooling facilities, girls and working children. At the time of adoption of the policy, the ‘out of school’ children were half the number of children going to school (Ramamurti, 1990). It involved people, especially women, in the planning for and management of education and increased the accountability of stakeholders. In pursuance of NPE-POA, ‘Operation Blackboard’ was launched and the scheme covered the areas inhabited by those belonging to SC and ST The scheme also made provision of appointment of female teachers to fill the gender gap in enrolment and retentions and teachers belonging to SC, curricular reforms for the inclusion of tribal culture, redesigning curriculum to suit the girls’ needs. The government invested a considerable amount in developing the infrastructure of schools (Govinda and Bandhyopadhyay, 2011)

Despite all these interventions, the desired output was not obtained. The programmes and schemes so initiated remained poorly funded and managed, the hostels and schools established for tribals were of low quality, training of teachers was unable to deal with the issues of disparities and exclusion. The existing diversities of the nations were inappropriately dealt and rather than leading into the notions of national integration, exclusion of certain groups was transpired. Although the policy called for generating community resources, it also involved non-governmental organizations. This privatization of education reduced the role of the State and its commitment to providing elementary education to children. This led to the beginning of a new phase of the policy change and schools from different managements came to play their role. With this, the major issue which emerged was that whether education of comparable quality for all children irrespective of their caste, class, gender or cultural background will remain available for all or not (Velaskar, 2010). This phase was critically looked up by Raina (2019) who said that this served as a collapse of Indian education policy which abandoned the constitutional responsibility for direct delivery and establishing a Common School System. Further, it also introduced the notion of Minimum Levels of Learning which belittled school education to just ‘numeracy and literacy skills’. The quality of public schools suffered from insufficient provisions. Even the Madrasas suffered low-quality educational provisions and hence the education of Muslim minorities also suffered. Due to the inadequate facilities available in the public schools, private schools became the preference of many households (Gupta, 2016), many of which were quite affordable to the poor households. This greatly impacted the issues of equity as households with economic and educational advantages increasingly opted for private schools and the public schools remained to be the only option for those who cannot afford the private schools.

Reviewing the progress made in the nineties represent the struggle which India faced while resolving some of the basic issues of schooling. It was realized that in the near time, a continued commitment with enhanced resource input will be required to meet the challenges of universalizing elementary education and that the pace with which the work was being done was too slow to reach the targets. When India was witnessing the phase of economic liberalisation, the nation also signed up the UN goal of Education For All (EFA) in 1990. This shaped a global consensus on a framework of actions needed to meet the learning needs of children. This gave India a push to make a national commitment to ensure that all children get an education. The nation received financial assistance from international agencies and some major projects were launched at that time. District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was launched in 1994 to universalize primary education and improving the access to schooling provisions and facilities, especially in remote and un-served habitations. The Mid-day Meal programme was also implemented to improve participation in schools. But increasing demand for private education faded the expanding public education and created hierarchies of access where different sections accessed the education of different kinds (Kochar, 2008). But rather than sticking on to the constitutional guarantee of 8 year-long elementary education, the 5 year’s duration of primary education was focused on equality of educational opportunity confined to attend the formal or non-formal education centres.

By the end of the 20th century, pressure was being built up within national boundaries to improve the condition of education in terms of access and quality. Following the agendas set by Dakar Framework (2000), the new decade witnessed one of the biggest flagship programmes launched by India called Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA). The programme under a time-bound framework, the programme was launched in mission mode to improve the access and participation of children with a focus on improving the quality of education. SSA served as a vehicle to take India towards fulfilling the educational agendas of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This took special care to mainstream girls, especially those belonging to disadvantaged sections. This also led to improved infrastructural facilities and access was brought to nearly universal. This can be said because where there were 641,695 primary schools and 198,004 upper primary schools during 1999–2000, the number got increased to 714,261 primary schools and 478,756 upper primary schools in 2011–2012 (DISE, School Report Cards of concerned years). With the launch of this programme, there was an urgent need for a comprehensive database that would help maintain the data related to the physical expansion of educational provisions along with a tracking system to record the movement of students at the elementary level. Owing to the decentralised planning, local level data needed to be maintained and analysed. This resulted in the formulation of DISE (District Information System for Education) which enabled school-level data to be build up into national level data.

But where SSA was a centrally sponsored scheme, where the funds came directly from the Centre with a contrasting grant from the States the funds were transferred to the districts, blocks, panchayats and then to the schools in a non-transparent manner (Bhatty, 2014). There were frequent cases reported by the schools where the disbursement of the funds was delayed and this impacted the functionalities of schools. The programme talked of specific roles which gender coordinators will play, but due to lack of proper training and resources, their effectiveness was reduced to a greater extent.

After that, in 2002, with the 86th Amendment in Indian Constitution, Article 21 A was inserted which primarily focussed on to providing free and compulsory education for all children in the age-group 6–14 years and further resulted in enactment of the Right to Education Act, 2009. This placed the Right to Education at par with the right to life. The Act came into force on 1 April 2010 and laid the foundation on which future policies and programmes could be built. It attempted to lay down the parameters for a regular school with minimum quality. These parameters pertain to basic requirements like infrastructure, teachers, curriculum and evaluation. Along with this, it banished corporal punishment, discrimination of all forms and brought the private sector into education with all the quality parameters applied to them as well. It further implied that 25% of seats in private schools will be reserved for the children belonging to social and economic marginalized sections.

By the end of 2010, the number of out of school children was still 8.15 million (SSA, GOI, 2011). The implementation of SSA along with the adoption of the RTE Act resulted in the enhancement of enrolment and attendance rates. As per the report on Education for All (NUEPA, 2014), around 98% of habitations around the country has an access to a primary school within a radius of 1 km and 92% of habitations have access to upper primary schools within three km radius. There was an improvement in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and Net Enrolment Ration (NER) and the enrolment rate and attendance rate have subsequently improved across some particular castes and girls (Education for All, NUEPA, 2014). But the Act also faced criticism by the parents who opposed the idea that their children will be studying with the children belonging to weaker sections. There were oppositions on the fact that the Act talks a lot about the infrastructural parameters but remains silent on learning parameters.

Ahead of that, to support the states and UTs in the implementation of the RTE Act and to make provision of quality education by simultaneously ensuring universal access and equity, an integrated approach (integrated in the sense that pre-school to senior secondary stage all under a single scheme) known as Samagra Sikhsa Abhiyan was adopted and hence implemented. The focus here was not just to provide equal opportunities but also to create appropriate conditions where children belonging to SC, ST, Muslim minorities, Landless agricultural workers, CWSN, girls can equally participate. Under this, access was not only confined to the availability of schools but also developing an understanding of the educationally needs of traditionally excluded categories.

With the coming up of the current government in power, a committee headed by Subramaniam was appointed to formulate a new policy on education for the country. The committee submitted its report in 2016 and was titled National Policy on Education 2016 (Government of India, 2016). After that MHRD released ‘Some Inputs for Draft National Education Policy 2016’ in the public sphere. But the status of both of these documents remained to be uncertain as there was no official announcement by the government in this regard. However, in the mid of 2017, another committee was appointed by MHRD and was announced that this committee will draw from both the policies and culminate into a separate policy. The committee released a report of above 480 pages in 2019 and came to be known as Draft National Policy on education 2019 (Government of India, 2019). Ultimately, in 2020, a new National Education Policy 2020 was announced after 34 years-long wait, with a pronouncement that it will be implemented from the academic session 2021–22.

The opening statement in NEP 2016 mentions that ‘the policy will amalgamate globalization with localization’. It emphasised skill development through the medium of vocational education keeping pace with the rapidly changing society. The policy also encouraged private funding in education along with renewal of curriculum, reforms in examination, inclusivity and outcome-based curriculum to provide opportunities to bring excellence in learning outcomes. However, the document missed out to talk about the common school system and in a way can be conceived that it has regularised the hierarchies of access in schooling. The policy recognises the need for a liberalised economy but keeps silent on the discriminatory role that multi-layered school education plays and creates a differentiated system of schooling for children belonging to different social and economic backgrounds (Gupta, 2016).

Finally, the NEP 2020 aimed to reconfigure the entire education system (Government of India, 2020) by revising the aspects of education structure, regulations and governance. It focuses on the need for a technocratic society which in turn requires a skilled workforce in various science-related fields. This vision emerges from the increased exposure and utilization of artificial intelligence, big data sciences, machine learning etc. This has a direct implication on the relevance of the multidisciplinary approach. The policy also proposes to set up PARAKH, a National Assessment Centre, for setting up norms, guidelines and standards for the assessment of students. In order to periodically check the system, the National Achievement Survey of learning levels of students will be carried out by this PARAKH in association with NCERT. Taking the legacy of the previous policies ahead, this policy also talks of eradicating the gaps in access, participation and achievements but does not specifically plan for it. The contemporary social issues like barriers to gender and caste participation, economic conditionalities, religion and regional issues still remain intact and unaddressed (Tiwari et al., 2020). Above that, the COVID-19 has also opened up spaces for debates where education has been critically looked at because the lockdown has severely impacted the permanence and performance of students. With the implementation of online teaching and learning, it is important to discuss what place will the theories for justice hold particularly then when the impact has been so differential across different groups (Papastephanou et al., 2020; Tesar, 2020). Digitalization of education is such threat that has excluded those who suffer from lack of resources. There is a severe limitation on the part of pedagogy too which has made the learners inert (Babu, 2020). Moreover, in the online teaching and learning, the undemocratic practices, the unequal distribution of resources, the way males, economically sound, some castes are privileged (Tesar, 2020), it would be important to see how the concept of equity sustains.

Discussion

Public education is not just organizing and funding the education but it is a way how relationship between the society and education is conceived and established (Ball, 2005). But since the question here is how can productive theorizations be developed so that the communities who have experienced the impacts of inequalities be served better, the answer lies somewhere in how well the education system is able to mainstream the children from all backgrounds. For a public system of education to close, the gaps in educational attainment among different groups, it should primarily value the idea of equity and that the policies should not be assumptions based (Tesar, 2021). The schools should be in a state of promoting socially and culturally responsive pedagogy and should refrain from providing some and segregating others. The decades long existence of inequalities in society and most importantly education, and the failure of education to deal with it reminds us that irrespective of all knowledge, experiences from the histories, the same issues have been carried over in 21^st century too (Tesar et al., 2021). Perhaps, this is the time now to think and implement the most effective strategies so that “education for all” thrives and become pertinent and in-tune with all irrespective of any background.

Conclusion

Even though there have been several policies been passed from time to time, the idea and target of achieving equity in education still remain unachieved. The National Education Policy 2020 has a separate section on Equitable and Inclusive Education: Learning for All, it would be important to see how well it takes into account the different realities of the Indian society. There are a lot of children who does not enter the schooling system because they suffer from disadvantages based on their social, economic or cultural background. The policy being ambitious in vision depicts a shallow conceptualization of the prevailing ground realities. The provision of quality education and that too after the introduction of the philanthropic private model seems to be problematic (Ball, 2010). The continuation of private players in the education arena would have serious implications on the inclusion of those who are left behind due to societal tendencies. Thus, in order to create inclusive and equitable society, there is a need to look at the exclusion from the perspective of the demands and conditionalities of those who have been left out historically.